The Scouting Trip

One of four crossings of the North Fork Chena River. Some of the fire damage can be seen in the background. We started out on Mountain Bikes.

More evidence of the fire on the way in. Jim and I observed one cabin lost despite the fact that pumps and sprinklers had been installed for protection

Taking a breather. Target is the Hill behind us which is the same hill featured on the home page

Root damage was a concern here, as these trees will topple with little or no warning. There was a thick stand of spruce just below Timberline that required particular attention.

The fire finally exhausted itself due to lack of fuel. We're about a third of the way in on what would later become the Upper 20.

View of the Upper20 from the top of Shifty's Hill, so named, because Jim, aka Shifty, wanted to see it. You could clearly see what happened here though. The fire, pushed by South-Southeast winds spotted over the ridge and into the next drainage on the right. We made it back to the Hot Springs and promptly crawled into the Rock Garden and called it a day, after covering about 20 miles mostly on foot. Now, we would wait for the staking period to open.